


And I'll Still Hold You Then

by MizGoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Smoking, Soldier!Dean, artist!castiel, bottom!Castiel, top!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 17:08:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizGoat/pseuds/MizGoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a thousand reasons why Castiel and Dean have drifted apart these past few years, but Dean is determined to comfort an old friend when his girlfriend leaves him. And maybe he can repair a little of what's broken along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I'll Still Hold You Then

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note for those with strong top! or bottom! preferences, I tagged this bottom!cas because it is, but there is talk of switching. Just a heads up.

Dean’s hands shook slightly as he turned the key in the lock. He was kind of amazed that he still even had a key. He hadn’t lived here in, what 5 years now? But Cas had never asked for it back, and he had never offered to return it. He liked the idea of being able to return to the apartment he and Cas had shared for three years. This was the first time he had used it to let himself in uninvited though. Truthfully he’d only been back a handful of times since he got back from the army.

The apartment had been a total find. The building was gorgeous. Built in the twenties it had ten foot ceilings and a claw foot tub. And ok, so the floor plan was a little screwy because the apartment building had been redistributed into more units than it had originally been built for, and the neighborhood wasn’t the most glamourous, but the rent was reasonable, and two guys in college could have done a lot worse for themselves. Dean had no trouble understanding why Cas had kept the lease on the place.

Hell, it had been this apartment that had brought the two of them together in the first place. Dean had told his friend Chuck that he was looking for a place. Chuck had said he knew a guy looking for a roommate if he didn’t mind living with a smoker. They had met over coffee. Dean had decided that, while a little odd, Cas was probably not a serial killer. And when he saw the place he had signed the lease. For three years they had been the ultimate odd couple roommates. Cas had a trust fund and went to a private art college. Dean was scrambling to grab the odd community college credit and worked full time to put his brother, Sam, through college, and his dad at arm’s length. And yet they had fit surprisingly neatly into each other’s lives.

So many memories wrapped around the cool brass doorknob as he pushed the heavy wooden door open with a bag of groceries tucked under his arm.

Inside the place looked different. The furniture mostly matched now, and instead of canvases propped up against any wall with enough space most of the paintings were hanging on on the wall, some even in frames. He could recognize most of them as Castiel’s work. A few that weren’t were likely obtained as trades with other artists.

Cas himself was perched on the couch with a quilt pulled around his shoulders. The coffee table in front of him was littered with empty beer cans, a full ashtray, and a graveyard of takeout boxes. He was watching Cheers. He acknowledged Dean’s entrance with a slight nod of his head, but kept his eyes fixed on the screen.

“So we’ve reached the point in the breakup where actually going to the bar to drink her off your mind is too much work, so we are sitting around watching a sitcom about a bar instead?”

“Don’t judge,” Cas’s voice was rough and raspy.

“I thought you quit?” Dean asked.

“I did. Twice,” Cas rumbled. “I’ll probably quit again in a few days.”

“Ah,” was all Dean managed. He turned down the hallway that lead to the kitchen in the back of the apartment. Cas made no move to follow. As he walked past the room that had first been his bedroom, then Meg’s bedroom, and was now apparently Cas’s studio and had been from some time if the level of chaos in there was any indication. Longer than the week Meg had been gone, that much was certain.

The kitchen looked more familiar. Or rather, it looked exactly the way Dean remembered it looking after he returned from being away for more than a few days. Dishes were piled up. The garbage needed to be taken out. There was a black carbony residue on the cooktop of the stove. It wasn’t that Cas hadn’t done his share of the cleaning when they had lived together, it was just that Cas seemed oblivious to what needed doing unless there was someone else around to make him aware of it. Dean smiled. Cooking and cleaning were something to do. There had been too much distance between them these past few years, but this gave him somewhere to start.

The first winter they spent in the apartment, Dean had gotten determined to teach himself to bake his own pies. Having the oven on all the time had made the kitchen the warmest room in the place and Cas had joined him more nights than not. Dean would bake and Cas would sit at the kitchen table and draw. By spring Dean had more or less mastered the art of flakey pie crust and Cas had a sketchbook full of drawings of Dean and pies. One of the pie drawings had been framed and hung over the sink now.

Once he had finished with the dishes and put a hastily thrown together shepherd’s pie in the oven, Dean grabbed a pair of trash bags and headed back to the living room to clear out some of Cas’s nest. Cas was still there staring blankly at the TV. As he started to pitch the containers of takeout, Cas finally broke the silence.

“Did Sam send you?” Cas might as well just have punched him and had it over with.

“No. Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of being a decent human being without my brother’s prompting. Although it might have been nice to find out about Meg leaving from either you or her, rather than hearing it from Balthazar the slimy gallery owner when you missed the opening of your own show.”

“I haven’t slit my wrists in the bathtub, if that’s what you were worried about.” Castiel shrugged deeper into the quilt. Dean swallowed hard. It wasn’t a joke, and it wouldn’t have been funny if it was.

Cas’s family had always fought. It was why he had picked an art school far away from any of the family homes. But four years ago two of his brothers had managed to get in a fight that ended with one of them dead and the other in jail for killing him. Shortly thereafter Cas had spent a month in a mental hospital. Dean had been in Iraq and hadn’t even found out about it until weeks after it had happened. Meg had been the one to help clean up that mess. And now she was gone.

“Is that the Impala parked out front?” Cas had actually craned his neck out from under the quilt to look out the window.

“Yeah?” Dean replied hesitantly, unsure where Cas was going with this.

“I’ll buy your gas. Let’s go for a drive.” Cas moved to extricate himself from the couch, and Dean smiled in spite of himself.

“Sure, where do you wanna go?”

“I haven’t left this apartment for three days. I don’t care. Nowhere. Let’s just drive for a bit.”

“Fine. And you don’t have to buy me gas, just change your clothes, you’re a little ripe man.” Dean waved his hand in front of his nose for emphasis.

Cas tentatively lifted his arm and sniffed then wrinkled his nose.

“Fair enough.”

Cas shuffled into his room and Dean went back to the kitchen. If he pulled the shepherd’s pie out now and covered it with foil it should be fine for them to heat up when they got back. Cas wandered back in wearing a more or less clean t shirt and pair of jeans.

“You were cooking for me?”

“Eh, I’m midwestern. We can’t talk about our feelings, so we just eat our own and feed other people’s.” Dean shrugged. It was easier to make a joke than admit to how worried he was, or how badly he wanted Cas back in his life. “Anyway, it’ll keep. Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah, ok.” Cas’s words rattled a little hollow and he didn’t meet Dean’s eyes as he moved past him back toward the door. On the way out he grabbed the grimy old thrift shop trench coat he had had as long as Dean had known him and slipped it on. Dean could never decide if he hated that trench coat or loved it.

When Cas settled into a hunch leaning against the passenger door and as far away from Dean on the bench seat as he can get, Dean told himself that it was just because he wanted something to lean on. He tried not to feel the space between them as a ocean he couldn’t cross.

For a long time they didn’t say anything as Dean took the fastest route he knew to get out of the city and out onto the empty rural back roads. The leaves on the trees had just begun to change color and the late afternoon would have been beautiful, but the sky was grey and ominous. Slowly Cas uncurled and sat a little more relaxed. His head still rested on the window, but the rest of his body slipped closer to Dean.

“She joined the Peace Corps.” Cas finally broke the silence.

“So I hear.”

“Meg.” Cas almost spat the single syllable out.

“The irony is not lost on me, Cas.” Dean agreed. He could never quite bring himself to liking Meg. She had, however, seemed to make Cas happy, and so he had kept his reservations to himself. Besides, he was never quite sure why he didn’t like her. She was self assured, had a sense of humor, and was, if he was totally honest, kind of cute. She had a bit of the “reformed juvenile delinquent with daddy issues” air about her, but normally Dean went for that sort of thing. And it wasn’t like his past was squeaky clean. It was probably because she made him feel guilty.

“It sucks that she’s gone, and it hurts, but I can’t shake the feeling that she did the right thing when she left. The relationship was going south in a thousand little ways.” Cas paused, and Dean tried to soak that piece of information in. “But, hey, maybe you can tell me what it is about living with me that makes people want to flee the country?”

In the silence that followed Dean realized that the radio was blaring some commercial for life insurance and with an aggravated snap of his wrist he turned it off.

“I did not leave because of you.” Dean clenched his teeth and swallowed hard. “Alright? I was fucked up about a lot of stuff. I was running away. But not because of you. Jesus, Cas.”

They fell back into silence, now unbroken by radio chatter. The Impala’s engine was a steady comforting rumble and Dean realized how angry he had sounded a few moments ago.

“Sorry.” Dean all but whispers the word.

“For what exactly?” The anger had deflated out of Cas as well.

“For not being there when you needed me.”

“You were deployed in Iraq,” Cas started to cut him off, but Dean plowed ahead.

“You were there for me when Dad died. And when you needed me I was too busy hiding from the world to be there for you.” Dean finished with a tone of finality. Castiel let out a soft hissing noise and when Dean looked over he was smiling.

“So that’s it then. I am officially allowed to blame all my problems on you? Even the ones that are likely caused by brain chemistry?” Castiel’s voice was a low smoky rumble that bypassed all conscious thought and headed straight to Dean’s groin. Which was not an appropriate reaction at all, what the hell.

“If you think it will help, sure.” Dean couldn’t hold back a smile at that. “Let’s head back.”

“I’ve missed you.” It was such a simple statement. Dean wondered why he hadn’t been able to manage it.

“I know how you feel.” Close enough. “Look, I understand too little too late. I realize there are things you say and do you can never take back, but what would you be if you didn't even try. You have to try. So after a lot of thought I'd like to reconsider. Please, if it's not too late.”

“You’d like a cheeseburger?” Cas finished for him. “Dean, I’m the only reason you ever listened to Lyle Lovett in the first place. Hell. I’m probably the only reason you ever listened to any band other than Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Did you think I wouldn’t see that one coming?”

“Made you smile,” Dean said grinning to himself. Cas just shook his head.

“Do you still have the tape I made you?” Cas reached under the seat to where the box of cassette tapes was stored.

“Should do.” And Cas was holding the tape case that was labeled with his blocky handwriting, “Because Sam said he might actually die if there wasn’t any new music on this trip.”

“You are probably the only person who has ever made me a mix tape. Most people just tell me to get with the times.” Cas just shrugged and popped the tape in.

“I had to relearn how to do it for this thing. And dig out my old CD player with the tape deck attached. But I can hardly criticize you for being a luddite. It would be a bit hypocritical of me.” Dean wanted nothing to do with digital music. Cas was allergic to email and social networking. He was only just warming up to the idea of the text message. He said he had a hard enough time talking to people when he could see or hear how they were reacting to him.

Rain began to patter down on the windshield as the storm that had been threatening all day finally opened up and the two men fell back into silence as they listened to the tape. Jo, The pretty bartender from the bar down the street had bet Cas ten dollars he couldn’t make a tape of country music that Dean would like. Jo had lost that bet. Of course it being a tape from Cas had maybe influenced his opinion of the music a bit. Dean wondered absently if she still tended bar there.

“I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch more over the past few years. I know you are probably doing a wonderful job of making this, this, whatever the hell happened between us, your fault, but the entire time you were deployed I made exactly one attempt to contact you. I got all your letters. I read them all. And I only ever sent one back.”

“You didn’t send a letter, you sent a drawing.” Dean took deep breath to steady himself. This conversation was heading into dangerous territory.

“It was the only way I knew how to say what I wanted to say.” Cas stared down at his hands.

Dean wasn’t sure what to make of that. He had every line of that drawing memorized. Cas had sent it from the inside of the mental hospital, and it had been the envelope’s return address that had first alerted him that something might be wrong at home. He had carried it with him so long that the paper had grown sweat stained and yellow and it threatened to fall apart where it had been folded. It was a simple pencil drawing of two clasped hands, and yet the detail had been sufficient to leave him with no question as to who those hands belonged to. His leather bracelet was around one wrist and there was the scar over his knuckles to recognize his own hand by. The other had Cas’s perpetually filthy fingernails caked with charcoal dust and a prominent callus on the middle finger from holding drawing tools.

And with a start Dean realized several things at once. The song playing was “North Dakota” and Lyle Lovett was singing, “And if you love me, say I love you. And if you love me, take my hand,” and Cas was biting back tears, white teeth sinking into his pink lower lip and eyes screwed shut. Dean didn’t even think about what he did next. His hand shot out and pulled Cas’s hand into his own. He kept his gaze fixed on the road, but Cas’s hand was warm and gripped his own with a gentle reassuring pressure.

The whole way back they sat like that. Silently holding each other’s hands, only breaking the contact when Dean needed to shift gears.

When they got back to the apartment they ran up the steps together with their head’s tucked down to avoid the rain. As soon as the door closed behind them Castiel pushed Dean against the wall and kissed him hard. Dean made a startled noise somewhere deep in his throat but he returned the kiss, savoring the feel of Cas’s chapped lips against his own. Slowly he twisted his arms around Cas’s waist and held him close while Cas’s had his fists bunched in the shoulders of Dean’s jacket.

Then the thunder rumbled overhead. Dean’s arms clenched and his chest tightened. His pulse started to race and it had nothing to do with the gorgeous man he had somehow lucked out into having in his arms. He broke the kiss and leaned his head back against the wall with an audible thump.

“Shit,” he whispered. Cas was staring up at him with the full attention of his intense blue eyes and his brows furrowed. _Here we go_ , Dean thought.

“I have some Xanax if you want it,” Cas informed him in that matter of fact tone of voice Dean had never really heard anyone else use. He laughed and some of the panic released. He could still feel his senses on high alert, but at least Cas wasn’t trying to coddle him or make him talk about it. He should have figured that if anyone would understand it would be Cas.

“I don’t want your pills, Cas.”

Cas nodded then dipped his head to rest it on Dean’s shoulder.

“You used to love thunderstorms,” Cas murmured against his neck.

“Yeah. Life’s a bitch.” Dean started rubbing small circles between Cas’s shoulderblades, and he wasn’t quite sure which one of them he was trying to sooth.

“Come on.” Cas grabbed Dean’s hand and pulled him down the hallway.

On one hand being in Cas’s bedroom made perfect sense. It didn’t share any walls with the exterior of the building and that made the sounds of the storm muffled and distant. On the other hand.

“So now we really are right back where we left off five years ago,” Cas said with a sigh and a slight shake of his head. “Oh, except we are both single this time. I have that right don’t I? You aren’t seeing anyone?” There was a hint of accusation in Cas’s voice and the arrow hit it’s mark.

“No,” Dean croaked. “I’m not seeing anyone this time.”

They had never talked about this. About the night before Dean left. About how the two of them had drained a bottle of Jack together and made out like a pair of teenagers on the couch. About how they had ended up in Cas’s bed or how the image of Cas straddling his hips, riding his cock with his back arched and his mouth hanging open was seared on Dean’s brain. Or about the fact that three days before that he had been telling Cas that he was seriously considering asking Lisa Braeden to marry him. And they especially had never talked about how Dean had panicked the next morning and left without waking Cas to say goodbye.

“I was never sure…” Cas sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “How much of that was you, and how much of that was you drunk.” Cas was staring at his hands again and picking at his nails. His shoulders were rounded and the brief confidence of a few moments ago has vanished.

“I’m not drunk now,” Dean said as he sat down next to Cas and slid an arm around his waist.

“Oh well, that’s good. Because, I mean, you were just driving and I’d hate to think,” Dean cut Cas off by kissing him. It took a moment but soon Cas was kissing him back with force enough to leave bruises. They maneuvered up the bed until Dean was laying on his back and Cas was on all fours above him.

“Want you,” Cas growled pulling at Dean’s shirt.

“God yes,” Dean answered lifting his shoulders to help Cas get his shirt off before tugging at Cas’s. And then it was like they couldn’t get naked fast enough. They tripped over each other to pull off shoes and pants. Some of their clothes ended up halfway across the room, others were piled next to them on the bed.

Cas’s hands were everywhere. They ran up the inside of Dean’s thighs and over his hips. They slid warm and hard over his stomach and along the firm muscles of his chest. When they came up to run through his hair Dean managed to catch one and pull it to his mouth to kiss and suckle at the knuckles and palm. Cas’s hands were a miracle. He had known that since the first time he had watched the dark haired man draw.

“I love your hands,” he whispered into the rough fingertips.

“Just my hands?” Cas tilted his head to the side, blue eye’s shining in the dimly lit room, and dragged the thumb of his free hand lazily over Dean’s nipple causing him to gasp.

“No. Not just your hands.” Dean pulled two of Cas’s fingers into his mouth and sucked to keep from needing to say anything else before he became too embarrassed.

“Ah! Quit that,” Cas jerked his hand back and stared down at him brows furrowed. Dean laughed and grabbed at Cas’s ass with both hands and pulled his hips forward.

Dean had never actually given a blow job before but he had been on the receiving end enough to know that being flat on his back was not going to be the easiest position for him. He was going to have to give over control of this situation to Cas, but that was fine. Cas could have him. Cas could have all of him.

Cas didn’t exactly take it easy on him, but he never gave him more than he could handle either. God in heaven but the noises Cas made had to be sinful, and some of them were Dean’s name. Dean realised he was moaning around Cas’s cock. He was actually disappointed when Cas pulled away.

But then Cas was between his legs one hand wrapped around Dean’s dick and the other urging his legs apart. Dean let out a small stuttering noise when Cas traced a line from just behind his balls to his asshole with his index finger.

“You ever have anything up here?” Dean could have swear Cas was purring and meanwhile his mouth had gone dry and any semblance of being cool about this vanished.

“Nope,” he rasped.

“Damn,” Cas snapped. Then he reached over the bed to the small nightstand. Dean’s heart was pounding somewhere up in his throat. The muffled sound of thunder echoed around them and Dean reached up to rest a hand on Cas’s taught side.

Cas came back with a foil packet between his teeth and a bottle of lube in his hands. Dean watched mesmerized as Cas pulled the condom out of it’s packaging. When Cas started to roll it down Dean’s dick he flinched.

“I thought,” he started to say, but Cas just shook his head.

“It would take too long to get you open, and I am in no mood to wait,” he grumbled.

“Oh,” and Dean realized he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. “Maybe next time?”

The look Cas shot him had a distinctly unpleasant look of disbelief in it, and all thoughts of laying back and taking what Cas gave him like last time flew out of Dean’s head. With one swift movement he pushed Cas off of him and settled on top of the startled man.

“What?” He barked as he flipped the cap on the lube bottle.

“Nothing,” Cas gasped, and, oh god, he was pulling his legs up to expose himself to Dean and his dick was twitching.

“I am done running Cas,” Dean grunted and slid a finger up into Cas, winning a sweet moan for his efforts.

Cas’s eyes were suddenly wide and staring right into Dean’s. His mouth was set into a firm line.

“Prove it.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

It was the last words either of them were capable of for a while. Cas’s body gripped him like a vice, arms twisted around his shoulders and legs locked around his ribs. They rocked together and Dean did his best to try and fill the hole Cas seemed to have. He kissed Cas while they fucked, first on the forehead and then the nose, both cheeks before finally settling on his mouth. He wormed a hand between them to pump Cas’s cock in his fist.

When Cas came it was with Dean’s name on his lips, and Dean grinned at the deliciously filthy feeling of his warm cum splashed between their chests. He didn’t last long after that.

It took a little coaxing to get Cas to let go enough to pull out and get the condom off. Cas tied off and inexpertly tossed it toward the trash can in the corner. He then wrapped himself back around Dean and tried to worm them back under the covers without actually getting out of bed.

“Cas, maybe we should, I dunno, wash off a bit first?” Dean didn’t really relish the idea of cleaning day old lube out of his pubes.

“If you insist,” Cas grunted and slowly hauled himself out of the bed, the post coital urge to smother Dean apparently subsiding.

He grabbed his cigarettes on the way to the bathroom. Damn, he knew he shouldn’t, but Dean loved the way Cas looked when he smoked. Cowboys and Film Noir apparently held more sway with his libido than PSAs about the health risks smoking posed. Logic could wait until the morning.

They washed each other with a sated laziness. Dean couldn’t resist draping himself over Cas’s smaller frame when he caught him shivering in the bathroom, and kissed a line from behind his ear to his shoulder.

Afterward he managed to convince Cas to stay awake long enough to eat the dinner he had made earlier. Both of them sat in the kitchen in their boxers eating the shepherds pie out of the casserole dish. As they sat eating logic and reason made an unwelcome appearance in Dean’s thoughts and he couldn’t shake the worry that what he had just had was in fact rebound sex, and that Cas would kick him out soon.

When Cas went back to the bedroom Dean lingered by the door.

“Do you want me to, I mean, should I head out?” he finally brought himself to ask.

“No!” Cas snapped then swallowing hard added, “I mean please don’t. I’d like you to stay. Please.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Dean said with a smile as he crossed the room and pulled Castiel back down onto the bed with him. They fell asleep with Cas curled into Dean’s chest and Dean’s nose buried in Cas’s hair.

In the morning Cas looked too peaceful to wake, so Dean didn’t. He wriggled carefully out of the bed  and into his boxers to slip into the bathroom then into the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on to drip. He had just flipped the switch on the pot when he heard it.

“God DAMNIT, Dean!” Cas’s voice was so full of anguish and Dean’s chest seized up. He couldn’t remember exactly how he had gotten from the kitchen to the bedroom, but somewhere along the way he bashed his shin and didn’t slow down.

“Shhh, Shhh. I’m here.” Dean slid onto the bed and pulled an unresisting Castiel into his arms. Cas was unresponsive for a moment then he twisted in Dean’s embrace to grab onto his shoulders. Dean was pretty sure he was gonna have a mean set of finger shaped bruises, but that didn’t matter. His shoulder was wet where Cas had crashed his face into it.

“I just went to make us some coffee. I know how you are before you get coffee in the morning.” Dean cooed and rocked gently.

“An insecure sobbing mess apparently,” Cas choked out.

“I’m right here. I’m right here.” Dean repeated the words like a mantra. “As long as you want me.”

“God, we are so fucked up.” Dean couldn’t argue with that.

“Yeah, but we do it in style, Cas. You gotta give us credit. We do it in goddamn style.” It won him a little snort of derision from Cas, and that was so much better than tears.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing well?” Cas countered.

“That’s the spirit. Come on let’s get some coffee into you. You’ll feel better.”

“Sure, Dean. Let’s drink coffee.” And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> So I swear this fic started sitting in my head like a god damn road block and was not letting anything else through until it got written. I was all, "I will write you when I finish some more of the Space!AU." And it was all, "No, bitch, you will write me now."
> 
> So I did.
> 
> Aaaanyway. Sappy shit. Whollly Cow. For someone who likes fluff I seem to write a lot of angst. I should probably stop with the country music while I write. But this one came from listening to "North Dakota" by Lyle Lovett which is just such a fantastically painful love song. I tried to leven the angst a little with "Here I Am" but the angst to dumb joke ratio is still pretty heavily angst skewed. Sorry all.
> 
> If you wanna listen to the music that I get fic titles from I have a play list: [ (Here I Am is Track 4 and North Dakota is track 5)](http://8tracks.com/mizgoat/fic-writing)


End file.
